Retro City Rampage hits some roadblocks on the way to Australia

For those of you that have been eagerly awaiting Retro City Rampage, the 8-bit sandbox title that’s CHOCK FULL of 80s references, you may need to reassess your preferences. Released on Steam on 9 October, many have been eagerly awaiting the console releases (WiiWare, XBLA, and PSN) – especially given the US received their PSN release at the same time as Steam.

The benefit with the PSN version is that it makes use of the wonderful PS3/Vita Cross Buy system, whereby a single purchase nets gamers BOTH copies of the title.

Brian Provinciano – the one man tasked with every aspect of the game (sole developer, now working alone to deal with marketing and PR, support, and dealing with the day-to-day business involved with the release of a title across several platforms) – mentioned previously that he would release each SKU as it passed through approvals process. In this way, fans could get their hands on his baby as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, it also means that some fans will be unable to play on their preferred platform while they wait on release to come around – and in the case of the PSN, this has been further fragmented regionally, with the European PSN release still forthcoming, almost a month after the US release.

Speaking directly with the official twitter feed for the game, @RetroCR (maintained by Provinciano himself), we did uncover some information that pertains only to the Australian releases. In response to speculation that Australia would not see any console releases, Provinciano stated that we would see a Vita release in Australia, as the Vita is classified here as a mobile device and as such could fall under the PEGI system of classification. What this means is that the game will not be released locally on PS3 (at least not initially), purely as a result of the time and expense required for our region. By extension, this suggests that Australians should not harbor high hopes for an XBLA or WiiWare version either, but as this was not discussed with Provinciano directly, we have reached out for further clarification.

While this news may well disappoint some readers, keep in mind that the game is currently available for Windows PCs now via Steam and GOG – and it’s a lot of fun.